LOOK BACK AND MARVEL

A Taster Selection from Cardopolis

This is a special taster edition of the Cardopolis Newsletter to welcome new members. There has been a significant rise in subscriptions in recent months and I thought it would be worthwhile to reprise some items from past issues. They should give you an idea of what to expect in the future and what can be discovered in the archives. All past issues of Cardopolis can be accessed online here.

If you’re a long-time subscriber, I hope you’ll forgive the repetition. Or perhaps be reminded of something you have yet to try. Cardopolis Newsletter is free but if you want to support the project you can do so via the Ko-Fi platform. Just click the button below.

THURSTON’S RISING CARD FROM CASE

‘By this method, the magician can make a playing card rise from the case.’ So begins a brief description of a trick described in Thurston’s 200 More Tricks You Can Do (1927). The effect is simple. The performer shakes a cased deck of cards and a card rises up. The trick works automatically. When you shake the box the front card of the deck rises up, friction between box and card enabling it to climb upwards. It looks much better than it sounds. Here are a couple of ways of making it look even more magical:

If you enjoy Rising Card effects, take a look at Devano’s Wydriser in Newsletter 8. In that trick the card rises from the centre of the deck. Also check out Newsletter 18 which has two more Rising Card effects.

THE BOGUS EFFECT REVISITED

The Cardopolis Newsletter features a fair amount of gaffed card magic. The Bogus Effect was first published on the Cardopolis Blog in 2007. It followed the publication of The Mind & Magic of David Berglas, which I co-authored. There was a flurry of interest in The Berglas Effect, David’s version of any card at any number (ACAAN). Some people didn’t believe it was accomplished with a stack, some audience management, and David’s flair for showmanship. The hunt was on for a more certain and perhaps easier way to do the trick. I thought of these painless substitutes as The Bogus Effect and offered up my own ‘easy’ solution. The trick became quite popular. Lu Chen used it on one of his TV shows with a presentation in which he told the story of the near legendary Berglas Effect. Here is the effect:

This version is an improvement on my original and was made possible by using a Reverse Svengali Diamond Edition. If you want to add the Reverse Svengali Diamond Edition to your toolbox, you can get it directly from David Diamond via his website. If you are in the US or Canada I suggest you contact Stéphane Lacasse of the Slim Card Co who also produces some very fine gaffed decks.

CYCLIC ACES

This effect looks skilful but is virtually self-working. It helps if you can handle cards well, but it’ll get you far more credit than you deserve.

PAPER PRISON

In the 1980s Bob Ostin showed me an astonishing coin trick. It wasn’t his. And he couldn’t remember where he got it from or who showed it to him. Its origins were something of a mystery when I published it in New Talon issue 1 (1986). That was over 35 years ago. I’ve shown the trick to many people over the years but no one recognised it. Tracing a trick to its lair is something of a preoccupation and in that respect Paper Prison was unfinished business. Last year, I discovered where the trick came from.

The roots to Paper Prison lay in Gene Shelley’s A Taste of Money which was published in Genii magazine (September, 1970). The trick there is a complex one involving two coins. The Genii article also mentions Eddie Tulloch as being the first to snap a coin from a folded paper while the spectator held it. That, too, sounds like a cool trick. Paper Prison are Tulloch/Shelley ideas pared to the bone to produce a stunning visual illusion.

THE SWING CHANGE

Here is the Swing Change from Cardopolis Newsletter 2. Which is so long ago that many of you probably haven’t seen it.

I published the Swing Change in The Magigram in October of 1976. The move came about when practising the Hugard One Hand Top Palm. I wasn’t the first to discover this move. Mark Weston published it twenty years earlier in The Magic Wand (No 254) as the Weston ‘Pinkie Reverse’ having discovered, as I did, that it made for a good method to reverse a card. If you do it fast, it also makes an interesting colour change. Here’s the explanation for the ace production that appears above. In preparation for the trick the aces are alternated with contrasting indifferent cards at the face of the deck. The production is for demonstration purposes only. I wouldn’t normally do this move four times in a row.

The rapid shift of the top card around the deck does make a noise. Practise and trying it with different card stocks will help make it quieter. Sometimes the card seems to flip smoothly and noiselessly around the deck. A light shake of the deck results in a very magical transformation. It’s an odd thing and worth experimenting with. You’ll find the Swing Change used in Going Up!, an Elevator Card trick described in Newsletter 13.

FINALLY

There is a Comment section below each newsletter and from time to time you’ll find additional information there either from myself or subscribers. Do feel free to share the newsletter with like-minded people. If you want to more Cardopolis, you can subscribe below. That’s all for now. I’ll see you in Cardopolis 25.